by Barb Hendee
Chap looked fearfully at Magiere. What did it want with her?
Sgaile had only been ordered to bring Leesil. Whatever Brot'an's scheme, he could not have known Magiere would bully her way into this side journey. What had the black visitor thrown out upon the plateau?
The creature clutched the air again, its gesture aimed at Magiere.
Magiere felt chilled inside, though the air was hot in her lungs. The clash of sensations left her dizzy and weak.
Sgaile stumbled a few steps downslope, shaking his head. But when he looked back at her, his sweat-glistened face twisted in a grimace.
Magiere had seen that look before, the first time Sgaile had watched her crawl under a blanket next to Leesil, and the day he'd looked into her eyes when she'd lost all self-control in Nein'a's clearing.
The small, dark being from the fissure's depths called to her… waited for her.
This turn of events sickened Sgaile as much as it stunned him. Suddenly, he waved her on.
"Go… now!" he snapped.
"I'll take you," Leesil whispered to her.
"No!" Sgaile commanded and swallowed dryly. "She must go on her own."
Chap pushed in against Magiere's legs. She settled a hand on his back and felt him quivering. As he advanced, she followed his lead. Sgaile took two unstable steps, but as always, he balked at interfering with a majay-hi.
Magiere burrowed her fingers in the scruff of Chap's neck. As he led her onward, she fixed upon a shimmer of red light on the plateau's stone. In one final step, her boot toe planted before it. She collapsed to her knees and felt along the stone.
When her fingers touched the bright spot, she snatched them back from its uncomfortable heat. Then she saw the object more clearly through her blurry sight.
The dagger was as long as her forearm, its base above the guard wider than a clenched fist. The tang sprouting below the guard, where a hilt would be affixed, was bare of wood or wrapped leather. That piece of narrow metal ran straight to the round pommel. The blade was two-thirds the length of a shortsword-a war blade. From its fine tapering edges to its point, its pure finished metal gleamed silver-white and perfect… like the doors Sgaile had opened in the upper cavern… like his stiletto.
Chap hacked and swallowed, and Magiere looked up, her eyes itching as they dried in the heat. The dog padded slowly to the second object, and lowered his muzzle. Magiere crawled forward on her hands and knees.
Beside Chap lay a circlet of ruddy golden metal, too red for brass and too dark for gold. Thick and heavy looking, the circumference was larger than a helmet, and it had strange markings upon it that Magiere couldn't see clearly. About a fourth of its circle appeared to be missing, and Magiere willed her sight to clear.
The circlet wasn't broken. That gap was part of its making. Small knobs protruded inward from its open ends, pointing straight across the break from one to the other.
Magiere wobbled on all fours and tried to lift her head.
The black leathery being watched her, and then suddenly raised a clawed hand to the side of its earless head. Long fingers traced down its skull, as if combing through hair it didn't have. The gesture pulled a memory into Magiere's thoughts.
One winged, frail female-a silf-not much larger than this thing, had appeared at her trial before the council of the an'Croan. And that feathered being had run delicate taloned fingers through Magiere's hair.
A crackling hiss leaked from the black creature's lipless mouth, and its phosphorescent eyes rolled closed. It threw back its head, covering its flat face with both hands. The hands slipped downward, exposing its mouth gaping in a face stretched by anguish.
A mournful bellow rose from its convulsing chest, like a horn blown rough and weak.
The sound vibrated in the stone beneath Magiere's hands and knees, making her nauseated. As her arms buckled, the last thing she saw was its gaping mouth.
In place of teeth were opposing dark ridges, the shade of dull iron.
Somewhere, she'd seen such before, and the familiarity made her shrivel inside.
Chap watched the tiny visitor lift its face upward, away from Magiere, and bellow in grief.
This creature recognized Magiere, or knew of her.
Why else would it have brought her tokens-a weapon and a broken hoop of mysterious metal? Neither Brot'an nor Nein'a could have known Magiere would come here. These gifts had come directly from the Chein'as.
But the sight of Magiere seemed to wound this one from within, and then she collapsed.
"Magiere!" Leesil called out.
Before Chap could scramble to her side, the visitor wailed again. As the echo faded and Chap shook off the pain in his head, it dashed toward the plateau's edge.
Chap froze as it leaped out over the massive fissure.
The small being did not plummet; it appeared to float upon the air. Red light engulfed the spindly black form as it swirled upon the rising heat, like an insect in a desert whirlwind. It began to tumble downward.
Chap lunged to the plateau's edge before it vanished, reaching for any memories he might catch.
Fire erupted in his mind.
It burned through Chap until he felt only stinging pain, and the cavern vanished before his eyes in a flash of searing white.
Leesil scrambled toward Magiere as Chap's piercing yelp struck his ears.
The dog fell twitching upon the stone. Chap's prone form shuddered and writhed as if he were trying to thrash free of something.
Leesil closed on Magiere and grabbed the back of her hauberk, but when he reached out for Chap, the dog lay too far off. He flipped Magiere over, put his ear close to her mouth, and heard her low breaths. She was alive, but Chap's piercing whimpers continued. Leesil went for the dog, and a hand snatched his shoulder, jerking him back.
"I will get him," Sgaile shouted. "Gather Magiere's gifts and take her out!"
"What's wrong with Chap?" Magiere whispered.
Leesil swung around to find her eyes barely open.
He didn't mind that Sgaile told him what to do. He wasn't even interested in the strange objects lying beside Magiere. All that mattered was getting her and Chap out of this place, before he collapsed from the heat as well.
"I don't know," he answered, and snatched up the earthy golden loop and the hiltless blade. "Sgaile will bring him."
Leesil hooked the loop over one shoulder, holding the dagger along with his new blades under the same arm. He hoisted Magiere, slipping her arm around his neck, and wrapped his free hand around her waist. Neither of them looked back as they hobbled toward the passage and the stone steps.
Sgaile dropped beside Chap's whimpering form, and his knees ground harshly on the stone. He grabbed hold of the dog, whispering over and over, "Ancestors, protect him… I beg you!"
Chap squirmed wildly, and he was heavier than anticipated. Twice Sgaile shifted his grip until he finally gathered the dog in his arms. The intense heat had no power against the pain of Sgaile's guilt.
He had brought outsiders before the Chein'as. He had brought a pale-skinned predator to this place, and watched as she was "gifted" along with Leshil. And now Chap-who was touched with the ancient Spirit-had fallen in agony. And Sgaile could not fathom any of this.
All because he could not refuse Brot'an'duive.
Each day brought more confusion and cast him into impossible circumstances, until he could do little more than cling blindly to his faith. But he could not bear it if this ancient spirit died in his arms.
"Please, be still," Sgaile whispered in Chap's ear, heaving the dog up and running for the passage.
Chap's bones became coals searing his flesh from within. All around, fire and glowing hot stone half-blinded him. Agony in his heart and mind rose from this stolen memory of the small black visitor from the chasm.
He saw others of its kind who crawled and scampered among mounds of smoking stone surrounding a molten river. Some swam within the orange fluid, small blackened creatures in a wide sluggish stream
almost too bright to look upon.
Lost in the memory, Chap saw his own dark and leathery hands. Spindly fingers ended in glossy black claws that caressed the hot ledge on which he crouched.
Please, be still.
The words came like a whisper from somewhere inside of Chap, and his pain began to dwindle, until he felt only the pleasant heat under his black hands and feet.
Then fear rose at the creatures' metallic wails.
Small ebony bodies raced and leaped about the chasm like rodents scattering along an alley to hide. The fissure's charred and smoking walls undulated faintly, becoming roiling black. Soft points of light emerged and flowed across them. Chap lost focus as something new caught his eyes.
It-he-floated in the heat-rippled air above the molten river. The air churned in whirling white-gray about the figure drifting forward.
The surface of his long, hooded robe swirled like oil, and the molten river's red light shimmered on the faint symbols scripted upon its folds. The upper half of the face within the hood was covered by a mask of aged leather that ended above a withered mouth and emaciated chin.
The mask had no eye slits, but the decrepit figure twitched its head about, watching the small black ones flee in terror.
Chap's own memory overlaid the stolen one, and he tasted flesh and blood in his teeth.
Ubad, mad necromancer and engineer of Magiere's birth, floated in an airy vessel made from his enslaved spirits. Pieces of that wispy gray-white globe peeled away in ribbons that dove and harried the fleeing figures. And one struck true.
A small black body screeched in torment as one of Ubad's spirits passed through its gaunt chest. Ubad descended and snatched it by the neck.
Chap leaped forward upon black hands and feet.
He bounded from one stone to the next along the river's shore, trying to close on Ubad. The dark-robed madman began to rise upward in his spirit cocoon, lifting into hot air. Chap clawed his way up the fissure wall and leaped outward.
No, the visitor leaped for its captured kin.
Chap relived the black visitor's memory, as it had tried to reach the one Ubad seized-the one who had been butchered in the keep of Magiere's father to make her birth possible. His black hands caught in the necromancer's robe.
Ubad's face turned downward as he squeezed his captive in his bony grip. His vaporous shell began to turn in a vortex around Chap's narrow black arms.
Intense cold ate away all the heat in Chap's body.
Chap's grip broke from the robe as a metallic scream tore from his throat. And he was falling.
Awaken… please do not die… come back to me!
Another whisper echoed inside of him. He heard it an instant before his spindly black body hit the scorching molten river.
Chap opened his eyes with a convulsive shudder.
He stared into amber eyes sunk deep in a dark-skinned face coated with sweat.
Sgaile sighed raggedly. His head drooped for an instant before he turned on his knees to look the other way.
"He is awake!" Sgaile called.
Chap saw the world tilted sideways where he lay with his head resting on a smooth stone floor. His vision was blurred, but he made out a silver metal oval. The doors were closed, sealing off the passage to the burning chasm below. They were back in the entrance cavern far above.
"How fares Magiere?" Sgaile asked.
Leesil half-sat, half-lay behind her, his arm wrapped around her waist. She breathed in long slow gasps, but her eyes opened now and again.
"She'll make it," Leesil said. "But we need more water for both of them. And we should head further up, out of this heat."
Sgaile nodded agreement. He dug into his pack and pulled out a water bottle. At his shift of position, Chap spotted the pile of metal items on the floor halfway to Magiere and Leesil. His gaze slowly cleared, until he made out the twin winged blades, the hiltless dagger, and the strange arc of earthy golden metal. The last item troubled him most, but he focused on the dagger.
He and his companions had stumbled upon another of the lost races- the uirishg-one of five nonhuman species that were thought to be but a myth.
Like the seyilf at Magiere's trial, that one chein'as upon the plateau had known Magiere and perhaps mistook her for some strangely formed kin. It had brought her tokens-or was there more to those gifts?
The visitor had seen one of its own taken long ago, and knew its lost companion would never return. Was that dagger a token of recognition for the shared blood that had been spilled at Magiere's conception?
Or was it a plea for vengeance?
One that the little visitor, or all the Chein'as, could never gain for themselves, locked away in the searing depths of the earth.
Chap closed his eyes. There was no way he could have offered solace. No way to tell the visitor that he had already torn out Ubad's throat.
The dreamer fell through vast darkness, and then suddenly stood upon a black desert. Dunes began to roll on all sides, becoming immense writhing coils covered in glinting black scales.
"Show me the castle," the dreamer demanded.
Flight through a night sky resumed once more.
Here… it is here.
The voice rose as the dreamer tumbled downward. High mountain peaks of perpetual ice loomed all around like a jagged-toothed maw. In its gullet was an immense sunken plateau crusted by snow. A speck within gained size, and for an instant the dreamer saw it become the six-towered castle bordered by stone walls.
The white plateau rushed up in the dreamer's sight and winked out.
But no impact followed in crashing down.
The dreamer suddenly stood before high arched gates. Mirrored twins of ornate iron curls joined together at their high tops in an arched point. Mottled with rust, they were still sound and had not yielded to time. Beyond them, the castle's iron doors rose atop a wide cascade of stone steps.
At a caw, the dreamer looked up. A raven sat upon the high gates.
The dreamer turned from the distraction, looking back to the steps and doors. Something white moved past a low window in one front tower.
It was a woman. Before she vanished beyond the window's far side, the dreamer saw a face like snow and coal black hair.
South… you must travel south.
"I am," the dreamer answered.
No… you do not even try!
"How… when will I find it? When will you leave me alone?"
Succeed… and there will be no more need for dreams. Lead on, my child… great sister of the dead.
Magiere opened her eyes wide and lurched from under the blanket, sucking air as she looked wildly about the night.
She still lay beside Leesil where they were camped for the night on their journey back toward the shore. Chap was curled upon Leesil's cloak near the dwindling campfire, and even Sgaile appeared sound asleep. Just beyond him lay the pack containing the "gifts" from the scorching cavern.
The blindfolded trek down the granite foothills should have been quicker than the ascent, but they'd stopped often to rest. None of them had the same strength with which they'd begun this side journey.
Tomorrow they would reach the ship and return to their voyage, guided only by Magiere's instinct. She stared southward into the dark. All she wanted was to run until she found… whatever she had to find… and got free of this driving urge.
Magiere lay down and rested her head on Leesil's outstretched arm. She scooted in until she felt his chest against her back. But when she closed her eyes, she saw the castle of her dream-and a pale-faced woman passing behind an ice-glazed window.
Chane had caught strengthening whiffs of sea air for the past four nights. Tonight, the salt breeze grew stronger. The ferals smelled it, too, and became restless, shuffling about each other.
Welstiel suddenly halted and pointed ahead. "There… look over the slope of trees!"
Chane craned his neck, eyes wide as his sight expanded.
At first he saw only a flat plain in the dist
ance, impossibly flat. Then he caught the faint ripples upon its surfaces. Tiny shapes of waves rippled upon open water stretching to the night's horizon.
Then another scent filled his head.
Life-human life.
The curly-headed feral began hissing and spitting, and the two younger males wailed and darted forward. Chane knew the smell would be even more intoxicating for them; it was all they desired. The silver-headed man and Sabel whimpered in excitement.
"Stop!" Welstiel ordered. "All of you hold!"
Like puppets jerked by their strings, the scampering monks halted. One young male fell to his face, unable to keep his feet as his rush ended. Sabel buckled to the ground, rocking back and forth on her haunches as her whimpers of joy became panting moans.
Their desperation wormed into Chane. He had gone longer without feeding than any of them, and he wanted blood.
"Follow me," Welstiel said to Chane, and then looked briefly at his minions. "Do not move from this place until I tell you." He pointed toward Chane. "Or he does."
Chane followed Welstiel through the sparse trees. Every step along the forested ridge intensified the scent of life on the salted breeze-and the smoky odor of a campfire.
Welstiel finally dropped and flattened on his stomach. He crawled forward as Chane did likewise, and they peered over a cliff above the shore.
Chane was not surprised to see the men below, gathered around a campfire in a sandy beach cove, but the ship in the waters beyond was another matter. A three-masted schooner was harbored not far into the water, and two long skiffs had been dragged up the beach. Each was half-filled with barrels.
"Who are they?" Chane whispered.
Welstiel continued to watch the men below, so Chane returned to studying them more closely-six sailors in varied worn clothes. He could smell sweat along with their life force. Two returned to the skiffs, loading a barrel. Judging by the way they hefted it, the barrel was full of something. He could just barely hear others speaking around the fire, but he did not recognize their language.
"Why have they come here?" he whispered.
"Seeking fresh water, I believe," Welstiel answered. "The tall one in the leather jerkin said something about their supply being contaminated."